So back to the original topic, could a normal person archive that level of picture? I would still like to think they could, if they worked hard and pushed the limits of their creativity..
Thanks for the responses, I'm enjoying hearing peoples views.
How would they do that if they don't understand what makes someone creative in the first place? Creativity isn't technical knowledge, or something you can get from a youtube tutorial... so how do you plan on pushing it?
You've just demonstrated why most people reject creativity... or at best, twist it's meaning into something else.... it's because, as you say... " If I thought otherwise I would probably chuck it all in".
Look in the Creative section in this forum if you want to see examples of how the meaning of creativity has been altered to suit people who have no creativity. I'm soooo gonna end up being banned (again) for this, but I really don't care: No amount of wire wool spinning, inverted images of smoke taking, water droplet shooting, or star trail recording will result in you being creative. How can it? There are already a billion identical images in existence - you're just adding to the stagnant pool.
Interested to learn more.
Step1: Realising that no matter how much technical knowledge you have, or technical skill you have... this does precisely nothing to making you more creative.. all it does is facilitate your creativity.... makes it more likely you will be able to create what's in your mind.... not generate the idea in the first place.
Creativity is something else.. it's separate. It comes from understanding that images/movies/adverts/brands.. all of them... are communicating ideas and thoughts whether you intend them to or not, and learning how to read them, also allows you to create them... or encode them. That's achieved by understanding visual communication theory to begin with (then getting far more critical later once you've managed to un-brainwash yourselves). Those of you reading this and thinking, "Oh.. here we go.. arty farty crap" are now being a victim of the mindset I was referring to earlier - you can leave now and save yourselves the pain.
The fact is, you ARE affected by images, and you DO recognise, and react to the things that THINKING creatives encode their images with. You're being worked on all the time by images, advertising, fashion, branding, design... you like to think you're not... that all your choices are independent and arrived at solely by you... but you're wrong.
You like what you're brought up to like. You buy what you're told to buy, and you think what you're told to think.... everything that makes you who you are, is the product of what other people have indoctrinated you with. Now.. I'm not saying that this is wrong, bad, or undesirable... because I include myself in this... and
any creative who truly understands all this will too... no.. it's not bad, but the trick is to KNOW this; to actually realise that this is happening to you, and more importantly, HOW it happens to you.
Anyone dipping their toes into this for the first time, could do a great deal worse than reading "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger. Read it, and despite what your first reaction to the book might be instinctively (still based on your pre-programmed prejudices and likes), just go with it, and assume it's all true.... then start thinking about why you like what you like. How did that happen? What makes you like the popular, the mainstream, and what makes you reject the different, the new, the challenging... the "other".
The reasons are many, and FAR beyond the scope of what I can write in this post, but to begin with, the foremost desire is to produce stuff that people will like, so the easiest way to do this is do what others do... what is already deemed to be "good" in the eyes of those you deem more experienced than you are. Producing anything else is a risk.. there's a chance that your peers may not like it, so you reject it for fear of being misunderstood. So you need to realise that the only reason you like what you like is because you've been influenced by your peers.
The irony is that people who think otherwise, and value art, are accused of the very same thing - "The emperor's new clothes" is a phrase often touted in these debates, but if people like
me are in a
minority... and people who think this is all arty farty crap are in a
majority... then who exactly is afraid to tell the emperor? You, or I?
It's easier to go with what the vast majority like as you are more likely to gain acceptance and approval.
We all have pre-conceived ideas of what's what, and how the world works based on what information we've been given. If you are merely a passive spectator to the imagery you're being bombarded with, you will merely accept what is deemed appropriate by your peers as acceptable. However, if you are part of an active, thinking audience that challenges, you may start to understand why everyone likes the stuff they do.. then you can start to be one of the ones that is directing thought and opinion instead of the ones merely consuming it. You need to understand culture (both with a little c and a big C)... you need to understand people's desires, motivations and commonly understood myths and ideas.
Once you know this, you can start to see certain types of imagery for what it really is. "Glamour" photography is a good example. It's been "normalised" to such an extent that those producing it are not even thinking about what the images mean.. it never crosses their minds. The other day I saw an image in here that was so heavily loaded with objectification of, and domination of women it was borderline misogynistic, but when challenged, the photographer said, "
On the subject matter, I'm not trying to put a message across or have any sort of narrative with the photo." He said this as if he actually had a
choice in the matter... as if that because he didn't intend a meaning (or more accurately, hadn't considered it) that the image doesn't
have any meaning. This is patently not true of course. No more than I could write the letters "Eff You See Kay" and convince anyone that I didn't actually mean that, no matter how strenuously I tried. The meanings are inherent in the subject, and not determined by the artist. If you dress a woman in a bra and mini skirt only, hide her face and then pose her in a totally dejected, forlorn and passive pose.. then place her in an environment that is couched in the trappings of a power system historically controlled by men, then I'm sorry..... they WILL say something.
Whether you wield that power to enforce or subvert is entirely up to you... but to ignore its very existence is just ignorance.
Glamour Photography and Pornography are absolutely identical in ever single aspect other than there is no actual sex taking place. The reasons for its creation, and the reasons for its consumption are identical. If you don't understand that, then your knowledge is lacking. The fact that this forum has a Glamour section is actually quite distasteful. I understand why it's there of course... it's because people want it there, and Glamour is popular... and this forum is a commercial endeavour. It is however.... utterly the same as pornography. Ever wondered why there are no pictures of men in the Glamour section? The simplistic response would be "Men aren't glamorous" of course.. but what makes women with their baps out "glamorous" anyway? Most images in their are not glamorous in the slightest.... it's page 3, pure and simple, and the only reason page 3 exists is to sexually excite the male readers. If you can think of another reason for it being there.. I'd like to hear it.
Plus of course while the team were sat at their banks of computers making sure every pixel was perfect the photographer was free to be flown somewhere else to take another shot 
